


The Reichenbach Sting (Sherlock/John, Scorpion Universe)

by buttsnax



Series: Scorpion Universe [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Birds, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Slash, m/m - Freeform, motile chelicerae, prosoma, scorpion au, scorpion universe, scorpionlock, tergate plates, the scorpion moriarty, where is my stick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:19:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttsnax/pseuds/buttsnax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the terrarium at 221B Baker Street, Sherlock falls ill as a new menace terrorizes their home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reichenbach Sting (Sherlock/John, Scorpion Universe)

John was worried. It had been longer than usual since their last feeding and Sherlock was acting sluggish. Neither had possessed the energy for gay scorpion sex for days. The temperature had dropped to around 77 degrees F and their ectothermic metabolisms were flagging. They were hungry.

“I will search for food,” said John, as he slowly pulled himself up out of his burrow. It was possible that prey existed somewhere on the other end of their 20-gallon tank. John was better off than Sherlock, having nested in several layers of snug vermiculite, which helped retain the fading heat of the day.  
  
Sherlock nodded at him from his hollowed log, looking admiringly upon John’s slick black carapace and motile chelicerae. He hoped John would find food soon.  
  
John crawled off in search of crickets. He had not gone far when the noise happened. The vibrations rippled through the terrarium floor. Frightened, John scuttled back into his burrow, his legs and pedipalps moving furiously to recover himself.  
  
Sherlock edged out of his bark shelter. The noise frequently heralded the spontaneous arrival of food. Sherlock was able to make this connection because he was the terrarium’s foremost consulting scorpion detective. John burrowed because his instinct for self-preservation was far stronger than his grasp of deductive reasoning.  
  
John was completely immersed in his bedding when Sherlock felt the telltale pinging vibrations of a nearby cricket.  
  
“John,” he said. “There is food!”  
  
John began the process of exhuming himself once more.  
  
Sherlock was excited, but cautious. He looked forward to his meal, but was troubled by the foreign vibrations picked up by his pectines behind the fourth pair of legs on his prosoma. There were crickets out there, but also something larger. Sherlock was suspicious the vibrations indicated the presence of a predator; perhaps a small mammal, or a centipede.  
  
John was not as cautious. “I want to eat,” he said, waving his claws at Sherlock as he hurried toward the source of the vibrations.  
  
Sherlock wanted to warn him, but John’s logic was impeccable: Sherlock also wanted food. He slowly followed John past a broken pot over to the shallow plastic water dish. In the wild this would not have been necessary, as scorpions usually absorbed sufficient water through their meals, but here Sherlock occasionally found it refreshing.  
  
John had found the first cricket and was tearing it apart with his claws in a hungered frenzy. Sherlock half-heartedly snapped at a second cricket, but it hopped away.  
  
John was concerned about his gay scorpion lover. It was a little cool in their tank, but not so much so as to induce the torpor that seemed to be affecting Sherlock. He resolved to catch a cricket for Sherlock now that he had eaten. Food made everything better.  
  
John scuttled off in the general direction of the cricket that had escaped Sherlock’s claws. He passed the water dish and came upon a clump of sphagnum moss. Crouched behind it was an unfamiliar blackish-blue scorpion, watching him.  
  
The intruder held two crickets, one in each claw. Around him lay the scattered exoskeleton debris of another cricket. Propped up against the moss was a small stick--Sherlock’s stick.  Naturally, as Emperor Scorpions are quite territorial, John’s metasoma twitched reflexively into an aggressive position.  
  
“I am the scorpion Moriarty,” said the scorpion stranger as it crawled out to confront John. “This is my food.” The scorpion Moriarty was almost eight inches in length, having descended from a proud scorpion family in the Upper Congo, though he had been born into captivity like John. He too had raised his stinger in a threatening posture, preparing to strike.  
  
John, feeling outclassed, backed away slowly. A cricket was not worth the risk of entering into a brawl with a scorpion so large. Perhaps there was food elsewhere.  
  
Having won this fight, Moriarty returned to his meal.  
  
By early morning John had not found any more food. He returned to Sherlock tired and still slightly hungry. Sherlock looked weak as he lay inside his hollowed log, his exoskeleton no longer glistening as it once did.  
  
“I could not find you any food,” said John, gently stroking Sherlock’s tergate plates. He felt like a scorpion failure.  
  
Sherlock opened and closed his spiracles in a sigh. “That’s fine,” he said. “I do not feel like eating.”  
  
Sherlock wanted to be alone. Occasionally, when he was hit with a particularly perplexing puzzle to solve, he would block the entrance to his cave with a stick and hide beneath the tank’s vermiculite bedding until he had a breakthrough.  Perhaps if he burrowed for a while he would feel better.  
  
Sherlock went to nudge close the entrance to his cave, only to find that his stick was no longer there.  
  
“John,” said Sherlock. “Where is my stick?”  
  
John suddenly recalled where he had last encountered Sherlock’s stick. “When I was searching for food I saw your stick with a new scorpion.”  
  
“My stick?” asked Sherlock, tensing. “My stick is mine.”  
  
“The scorpion Moriarty has your stick,” replied John. “And our crickets.”  
  
Sherlock went silent as he contemplated this new development.  
  
“He is a big scorpion,” added John. John did not like the scorpion Moriarty.  
  
Sherlock crawled back and forth, agitated.  
  
“John,” said Sherlock. “Listen to me. I know this scorpion. He is the Napoleon of scorpion crime. He is behind the theft of half the sticks and nearly all the crickets in this great terrarium. He is a genius, a philosopher, a _stinger_.”  
  
Every one of John’s eyes went wide. Sherlock had only ever used that word once before, when he accidentally burrowed under their water dish, tipping it over and spilling it onto their bedding. Sherlock was quite angry at the time, berating himself. Until now, John had never heard Sherlock direct the term at another scorpion. This was serious.  
  
Sherlock continued, still pacing. “He has an array of neuronal ganglia of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web. And not a tasty spider, but the kind that eats you.”  
  
“The scorpion Moriarty ate three crickets,” said John, nodding.  
  
Sherlock said nothing. After a time, John shrugged two of his eight scorpion legs and went back to his burrow, nestling into the substrate. He fell asleep worrying about Sherlock. Nothing good could come of all this.  
  
He awoke to a stifling heat and a wave of strange vibrations. His first instinct was to stay hidden safely away from the source of the movement, although the rising temperature and corresponding drop in the terrarium’s humidity level was uncomfortable. Then he remembered Sherlock, and the aggressive scorpion interloper. He dug his way out of the burrow as quickly as he could.  
  
When John emerged from his burrow, it was as he feared. Sherlock was perched atop his log shelter, seemingly oblivious to his vulnerability to airborne predators. The scorpion Moriarty was there with him, their claws locked together in the dance of territorial combat.  
  
John’s spiracles closed up and his telson quivered. He wanted to climb up there and defend his homo-scorpion life-partner, but he was afraid of birds. Scorpions seldom had any warning before a bird swooped down to carry them away or skewer them with their sword-like beaks.  
  
Held prisoner by his own avian fear, he had no choice but to watch as the scorpion Moriarty gained the upper claw.  
  
Taking advantage of his opponent’s weakened state, the scorpion Moriarty pushed Sherlock up against the terrarium’s glass wall and raised his stinger to a striking position.  
  
“No,” John whispered, still just as paralyzed by fear as a small lizard might be paralyzed by his imperatoxin.  
  
The scorpion Moriarty’s metasoma flexed and his telson came down in a killing blow, the aculeus piercing Sherlock’s carapace right between the median eyes in a perfect strike. The victor chittered triumphantly and released Sherlock’s body, which fell to the tank’s floor with a small thud.  
  
Traumatized, John fled. Finding a corner, he dug himself into the mossy substrate there, but was only half-buried when he heard a noise.

Looking up, he watched as a long, whitish-pink abomination came down from the heavens and grasped from the log what appeared to be the scorpion Moriarty. The captive scorpion wriggled and writhed, but to no avail. He was gone. The great pink thing had taken him.  
  
John lay there for a moment, processing what had happened. It mattered not that the scorpion Moriarty was no longer there to torment him. Sherlock was dead. It devastated him. He was alone.  
  
Just then he heard a rustling behind him.  
  
“Don’t worry,” said Sherlock, emerging from a bark-tunnel. “I am still here.”  
  
“Sherlock!” said John, near tears. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You are not dead.”  
  
Sherlock flexed his glistening new exoskeleton.  
  
“I molted,” he said with a touch of pride. “The scorpion Moriarty attacked my empty skin.”  
  
“You had me fooled as well,” said John, glad to see Sherlock alive and healthy.  
  
“Scorpions have very bad eyesight,” Sherlock replied as he caressed John’s prosoma with his pedipalps.  
  
John was pleased.  
  
“I’m hungry,” said Sherlock.


End file.
